Bruce Nolan
Bruce Nolan is the main protagonist of the 2003 hit comedy Bruce Almighty. Bruce Nolan, a television reporter in Buffalo, N.Y., is discontented with almost everything in life despite his popularity and the love of his girlfriend Grace Connolly . At the end of the worst day of his life, Bruce angrily ridicules and rages against God and God responds. God appears in human form and, endowing Bruce with divine powers, challenges Bruce to take on the big job to see if he can do it any better. Bruce soon learns that being God is NOT as easy as it seems at all as his home life starts to suffer from his foolish use of godly powers. He is portrayed by Jim Carrey, who later voiced Horton the Elephant in Horton Hears A Who!. Biography Bruce Nolan is a television field reporter for Eyewitness News at WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York. He mainly reports on humorous human- interest stories, causing some to nickname him "Wacky Bruce," but he desires to be the news anchorman. He is in a healthy relationship with his girlfriend Grace Connelly, but also has a mild crush on his co-worker, Susan Ortega, who barely seems to notice him. Bruce, however, continues to suffer unfortunate events and it reaches his breaking point when he is passed over for promotion to the anchor position by his rival, Evan Baxter, who steals dialogue from Bruce's segment in accepting the promotion on-air. Bruce becomes furious and aggressively and profanely criticizes the station during his first live report (and in the middle of Sweeps Week, to boot), resulting in him getting fired. Following a series of other misfortunes (getting beaten up by the street thugs who then vandalize his car; plowing his car into a street post) Bruce complains that God is "the one that should be fired." Bruce later receives a message on his pager, directing him to an empty warehouse. Aggravated beyond words, and unable to stop the beeper from going off, Bruce calls the number and listens to a tape recording of someone who apparently knows everything that's going on in his life. Intrigued, he drives to the address he got over the phone, finding himself in Buffalo's warehouse district. Bruce gets out of car to look for the address, stepping in a huge, filthy puddle that splashes all over his jeans. He enters a warehouse to find that the ground floor is empty except for an African-American janitor mopping the floor. Bruce asks for directions to room seven on the seventh floor, finding much to his annoyance that the elevator doesn't work. As he heads for the stairs, the janitor asks him to help mop the floor, and Bruce retorts that he would be happy to help in seven days at seven o'clock. Arriving on the seventh floor, Bruce finds himself in a huge, empty room that's painted stark white. As he calls out for help, the janitor climbs down a ladder through a hole in the ceiling connected to a brightly lighted room above. Bruce thinks the janitor must have taken the elevator to get there ahead of him, and watches while he strips off his coveralls and sits down behind a white desk impeccably dressed in a white suit and tie, disclosing—much to Bruce's amusement—that he is, in fact, God. God proceeds to prove his powers by showing Bruce a file cabinet that contains everything that ever happened in his life. The drawer is so long that it pushes Bruce all the way across the room, then slams shut again dragging Bruce along behind. Bruce is still skeptical, so he and God play a game where God guesses how many fingers Bruce will hold up. Bruce is finally convinced that something strange is going on when he holds up one hand with seven fingers just as God says, "Seven." God has a plan for Bruce. Since Bruce thinks God isn't doing a very good job, he will give Bruce all his powers and see if Bruce can do any better. God retreats to his ladder, clapping for the lights to go back on so he can climb back up. "Clap on, clap on," is another joke that repeats throughout the film. Bruce makes a quick exit, not believing a word of what this self-proclaimed God has told him. Outside in the street, Bruce finds that he can walk across the puddle that tripped him up earlier. His car won't start until he bangs his hands on the steering wheel and yells, "Start!" As he drives, he realizes that all his fantasies—such as for example being Clint Eastwood---easily come true. Bruce stops at a diner to order coffee and the waitress convinces him to add an order of tomato soup. He agrees, then decides to try out parting the Red Sea with his bowl of soup. The soup parts in two, Bruce's hair flies about, amazing another customer. God appears out of nowhere, sitting in the booth across from Bruce as he finally comes to the realization that he does indeed possess all of God's powers. Bruce and God then go for a walk, where God tells Bruce about the two rules of his powers; he can't tell anyone he's God, and he can't mess with free will. Bruce then sees a boat sail past, and he realizes that the two of them are walking on a lake in Buffalo. God then leaves Bruce, and Bruce runs off to have fun with his powers. Returning to the center of Buffalo, Bruce struts down the street gleefully, eager to use his powers on whatever he wants. He points his fingers at a fire hydrant, causing it to burst, and water to fly out. He then sees an attractive young girl walk past, and he causes a gust of wind to lift her skirt, giving him a good view of her underwear and bottom. Bruce spies a trendy set of clothes being worn by a mannequin in a shop window, and uses his powers to swap them with his own clothes. As he struts further down the street, Bruce spots the gang that beat him up earlier, and decides to get some revenge on them. He demands that they apologize to him, but they just laugh, and Bruce is told by the gang leader that he'll get his apology the day a monkey comes out of his butt. Thanks to Bruce's powers however, that was that day, and a monkey forces its way out of the man's rear end. The other thugs run off, but are chased by a swarm of bees that Bruce spits out after them. He then commands the monkey to return into the gang leader. Bruce also finds ways of using the powers to cause miraculous events to occur at otherwise mundane events that he covers, such as discovering Jimmy Hoffa's body or causing a meteor to harmlessly land near a cook-off, earning him his job back. Bruce then uses his powers to cause Evan to make a fool out of himself on-air, causing Evan to be fired in favor of Bruce as the new anchor. After taking Grace to a fancy dinner and telling her he made anchor (angering her, as she thought he was going to propose), Bruce begins to hear voices in his head. He re-encounters God, who confronts Bruce on using his powers for personal gain and not helping people. He also explains that the voices are prayers to God that Bruce must deal with. Bruce creates a computerized email-like system to receive the prayers and respond, but finds that the influx is far too great for him to handle — even though God had stated that Bruce is only receiving prayers from the Buffalo area — and sets the program to automatically answer Yes to every prayer. Bruce attends a party celebrating his promotion. When Grace arrives, she finds Bruce being seduced and kissed by Susan and storms out. Bruce follows Grace, but she is heartbroken and will not listen to him. He tries to use his powers to convince Grace to stay but cannot influence her free will. As Bruce looks around, he realizes that the city has fallen into chaos due to his actions. Bruce returns to God, who explains that despite how chaotic things seem, there is always a way to make things right, and that Bruce must figure out a way to solve it himself. Bruce then begins to solve his problems in life practically, such as helping a man whose car broke down across the street, training his dog normally and allowing Evan to have his job back. Bruce returns to his computer system and goes about answering prayers as best he can. As he reads through them, he finds a prayer from Grace, wishing for Bruce's success and well-being. As he reads it, another prayer from Grace arrives, this one wishing not to be in love with Bruce anymore. Bruce is stunned and walks alone on a highway, asking God to take back His powers and letting his fate be in His hands. Bruce is suddenly struck by a truck and regains consciousness in a white void. God appears and asks Bruce what he really wants; Bruce admits that he only wants to make sure Grace finds a man that would make her happy. God agrees and Bruce finds himself in the hospital, shortly after being revived — near miraculously — by the doctors. Grace arrives and the two rekindle their relationship, with Bruce and Grace later becoming engaged. After his recovery, Bruce returns to his field reporting but takes more pleasure in the simple stories. Bruce and Grace announce their engagement on live TV. The film ends with the beggar Bruce previously ran into on various occasions finally revealing himself to have been God in disguise all along. Category:Male Category:Movie Heroes Category:Comedy Heroes Category:Live Action Heroes Category:Fortune Hunters Category:Paranoid Category:Egomaniacs Category:Neutral Good Category:Heroic Jerks Category:Master Orator Category:Wrathful Category:In Love Category:Rivals Category:Outright